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Warner Bros Wins the Battle for 'Dungeons & Dragons' Movie Rights

Well, this is a no brainer. But maybe 40 years too late? We'll find out soon enough if a name alone can make a hit. News has broke via Deadline that Warner Bros and producer Roy Lee (The Departed, Quarantine, Abduction, The Lego Movie) have obtained the rights to make a Dungeons & Dragons movie, based on the seminal fantasy role-playing game first invented by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson in 1974. However, the interesting thing is that the project is actually developing by way of another "free-standing" script merged into this project to become the Dungeons & Dragons movie. But it has all the right people involved so far.

According to the news, the original screenplay was called Chainmail, written by a "Frank Darabont protege" David Leslie Johnson. That project was developed originally based on an "obscure game that was also hatched by D&D designer Gary Gygax before he and Dave Arneson launched D&D," so it has a connection. This movie is being produced by Roy Lee and also Courtney Solomon, the Canadian filmmaker who directed the cheesy 2000 Dungeons & Dragons movie nobody saw. There's a lot of buzz around it already, with Deadline saying WB is "treating it as a big priority… The studio’s intention is to reboot the franchise for a new generation." Obviously makes sense following the success of "Game of Thrones" and The Hobbit trilogy.

For those who may still be unfamiliar, Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy, role-playing, table-top multiplayer game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. Players create characters with attributes and embark upon fantasy adventures, with a Dungeon Master serving as the score-taker and storyteller. D&D is still popular today (if you've ever been to a Comic-Con, you know that) which means this has the potential to be big, but I'm intrigued to see them follow up The Hobbit and Warcraft first. Any readers big D&D fans?

For the love of God, Do the Dragonlance Trilogy!!! Excellent books, perfect characters and would make for top notch films!

Raistlin

1000xYes. The Weis and Hickman stuff is great, and I would kill to have Tasslehoff on the screen

David Banner

Agree, first 3 DragonLance novels were good, but I haven't read any of their other novelizations last 20 years? Maybe there's something better?
Forgotten Realms/Drizzt Do'Urden or maybe a Dark Sun setting?
And no, I have not seen the third D&D movie that came out on DvD last year-I'm thinking it's a pile of crap, am I right?

Lupo

actuallay it's not THAT bad. It may be more fun if you played 4th edition 'cause you see some 4th edition stuff displayed (races & classes), as well as some general D&D references. So for me it was in line with the second movie - a B-Movie for fans of D&D

OfficialJab

They brought back the creators of the other D&D movies for this?
...but why?

Make a good adaption of the Drizzt novels= make hundreds of millions of dollars, make tens to hundreds of millions of fans, make a movie that can compete with any superhero movie this side of Batman/Supes and open up a movie universe as powerful ($$$) and deep as Marvel/DC/Star Wars/Star Trek/LOTR.
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Alex, does D&D hold their own rights a la Marvel (and they're just making a one time deal with WB to make this movie)? Or does someone else hold the rights?

UNIlover

If the film doesn't have Uni in it then it won't be D&D. Also Uni needs to ruin the escape every time in a secret and selfish bid to keep the kids there.

mooreworthy

What was up with dressing the young girl in a fur bikini?

Brian Sleider

Movie will not get the money needed to be a real blockbuster. Be prepared for a straight to dvd quality movie.

Bl00dwerK

Cast RDJ. It'll make money...

GN Braun

Drizzt, Dorn, or GTFO.

chris

How do you make a generic D&D movie without it just looking like a collection of the usual fantasy devices any other genre film would churn out. It has to be tied to something more to distinguish it. Just *saying* it's a D&D movie isn't going to achieve anything.

si1ver

Hey come on, its not like they just made up a story and then mixed it with a D&D script and called it D&D
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...oh wait.

mistermysteryguest

Didn't they already do a crappy version of a D&D movie?

Nick

Yes, as was stated in the article you appearantly didn't read.

mistermysteryguest

Correct. I read the title and skimmed this particular article, since I'm not very interested.

Calen Nost

The movie was acutally decent. But the general populace doesn't understand D&D and therefore, didn't get how the characters where portrayed in the film.

Sam Casey

"How come everytime somethin' happens, YOU got to blame the mages?"
"Well, when was the last time you saw a river catch on fire?!?"
I LOVED the movie!

Harry

Why is there no update on this? Universal is also makine a Dungeons & Dragons movie. Did you leave it all up to Ethan while you're in Cannes?

Mario Adi

Liam Neeson as Tanis Half elven.

Sam Casey

Sean Connery as Flint Fireforge!

Jason M. DeWitt

Legend of huma, then into the dragonlance trilogy. That would be pretty sweet.

chris

animated movie might be better. after all look what happened to the dragon ball z live action movie a classic anime destroyed by a live action movie. its something that shouldn't be rushed

Sam Casey

I saw the live action D&D movie with Justin Waylin andDamon Wayans. I even saw the sequel. (Yes, there is a sequel) I liked'em.

Sam Casey

I see all the articles talking about how WB is planning a Forgotten Realms movie and yet, all the comments I keep reading is about Drizzt. Is that the ONLY character people are familiar with? You got Mazzy, Cernd, Minsc and Boo, Jahiera, Imoen, Jon Irenicus, a whole host of characters. All you people can think about is just one? Drizzt was cool and all but, the world is a LOT bigger than he.